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h i s t o r y

Tao Kurihara first joined Comme Des Garcons after graduating from the London Central Saint Martin’s school for fashion and design in 1997. She spent the next eight years working with Junya Watanabe and her label before she was given her own small collection in 2005. In the year that followed, her work was drawing international attention in Paris and continued to grow until the label was closed.

The earliest work produced by Tao Kurihara involve the simple combination of knits and lingerie into a hybrid sort of design. Later designs, including the most recent 2007 and 2008 shows showcased a more elaborate design of flowing, blustery one-piece dresses and suits. Other collections from Tao have included the 2005 concepts that involved lace handkerchiefs knitted into trenchcoat, utilizing samples and handkerchiefs from around the world.
Recent work has featured a combination of toga-like flowing shawls and dresses with elaborate headdresses, free flowing whites and blues and a collection named “My Holy Tribe”.

From an article by Susannah Frankel
For those who worship at the altar of the Comme des Garçons fashion empire
and all that the name enfolds, news that Tao Kurihara – who has been showing
under this particular umbrella since the autumn/winter 2005 season – was ceasing
production of her own label came as something of a blow.
Following in the footsteps of her mentor, Comme founder and designer, Rei
Kawakubo, and Junya Watanabe, whose business is also supported by the parent
company, Kurihara, whose label is called just Tao, has given the world some of
the most brilliantly beautiful and proudly innovative designs of the past
decade, after all.

Particularly in light of any so-called new realism, her twice-yearly
womenswear collections, shown only to a small and initiated audience, as opposed
to one comprising many thousands, were always a sight for sore eyes. As often as
not, these took place in unassuming surroundings, with nothing but the clicking
and whirring of cameras as soundtrack.
It all started with an elaborate re-working of the corset; only in Kurihara's
hands this was cable-knitted and came with a ruffled and also knitted lace trim
and predominantly in less than overtly feminine school-uniform grey. Witty and
pretty in the extreme, it quickly came to the attention of the more discerning
fashion follower who, while she might not have been quite ready to buy into this
aesthetic in bulk – it was as prohibitively expensive as it was extreme – would
be more than happy to see and read about it. This she could do in the pages of W
magazine which, for a debut collection, is elevated coverage indeed.
The famously media-shy Kawakubo, meanwhile, admired Kurihara's work enough to
make an exception to her rule of silence and comment in that magazine thus: "The
Japanese don't have the habit of praising their own family, but I thought the
collection was good because it has a concept and youthfulness."
This, too, for those who know just how backwards the fashion deity is in
coming forwards, is quite an accolade.
Next came a collection based entirely on handkerchiefs – predominantly found,
vintage Swiss handkerchiefs – and trench coats. "I was attracted to the strong,
cool, definite form of trench coats," Kurihara explained of that season's
offering. "But I wanted to make something very different from traditional,
water-resistant and functional trenches. So I chose to work with something
fragile and familiar: handkerchiefs."
Kurihara re-worked old-fashioned bedcovers too, into exquisite,
rainbow-coloured stoles and, more spectacularly still, turned her attention to
the wedding dress, playing off the overblown and ornamental genre with nothing
more overtly feminine or obviously decorative than a classic man's white shirt.
"I thought the idea of a man's shirt meeting a white dress was a beautiful one,"
she told me at the time. What attracted me most to that idea is how special a
wedding dress is.
"That is because it is worn only once. Some people get married a few times
but they don't, I would imagine, wear the same outfit or go on to wear their
wedding dress again as part of their daily outfit."
For this reason, she continued, at least some of the designs in the
collection were crafted in plain white paper, only pleated and folded in a
manner that might upstage even the most overblown meringue. "That makes sense to
me," Kurihara said. "Paper is so fragile and not appropriate for over-use. I
thought a paper wedding dress would be more special than one that was crafted
out of a more traditional and typically extravagant material." Someone really
ought to tell Kate Middleton, although, and perhaps sadly, the future queen is
likely to opt for a more conventionally ornate affair.
"I think the best way to express myself is to do a small but concentrated and
very condensed collection," was how the designer explained any self-imposed
limitations as far as theme was concerned. "I believe that when one sets such
limitations some kind of strength occurs."
From thereon in, Kurihara based her shows on everything from 1980s gym-wear –
striped, in hot pink and edged with small but perfectly-formed crushed frills –
to the twisting and knotting of great swathes of fabric and the type of uniform
the most sartorially discerning toy soldier might like to wear. While her work
is clearly indebted to Comme des Garçons in particular and to the Japanese
school of design more generally – and with that a belief that experimentation,
as far as both fabric, cut and proportion are concerned, is of prime importance,
her aesthetic has always also been gently feminine and as playful and
light-hearted as it is clever.
What she does share with both Kawakubo and Watanabe is an uncompromising
disregard for anything as obvious as a passing trend or even anything even
remotely people-pleasing.
"Everything I create has to be individual," she says. "I therefore don't make
clothes with what people might like in mind. Rather, I make clothes that I think
are beautiful."
In fact – and in this she differs from her Comme des Garçons stablemates –
Kurihara studied fashion in London at Central Saint Martin's "a few classes
behind Stella and Phoebe. I couldn't find any Japanese universities and colleges
where I could investigate my interests more deeply. I don't deny that my
national identity is reflected in my work. I think I'm influenced by where I
grew up and especially by my experience at Comme des Garçons. However, I don't
think my way of working would change if I was another nationality. My standpoint
would still be the same. Nationality is pure chance".
Since graduation – and based once more back in Tokyo – her career path has,
as she has always said, been entirely indebted to Comme des Garçons. After
graduating, she worked as assistant to Junya Watanabe and, as well as designing
her own collection, in 2002, took over from him at the more accessible Comme des
Garçons Tricot line alongside. She has been, she argues, "very lucky to work in
an environment with 100 per cent free spirit".
Of her decision to stop work on her signature line, she says now that she was
looking for "a change of my lifestyle – marriage could have been a trigger."
Kurihara is, of course, not the first or last talented designer to make such
a move and, although her presence in Paris will be missed, she will continue to
design Tricot, which is available in Dover Street Market in this country and
enjoys a high profile in Japan. "My intention is to create the kind of everyday
clothing that is new and exciting for this label. From now on, I will introduce
Tao's essence into it", she says.